Newsbytes from Dr. Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation
Britain should brace itself for another freezing winter with the return of La Niña, a climate phenomenon known to disrupt global weather, ministers have warned. The warning coincides with research from the Met Office suggesting Europe could be facing a return of the “little ice age” that gripped Britain 300 years ago, causing decades of bitter winters. The prediction, to be published in Nature, is based on observations showing a slight fall in the sun’s emissions of ultraviolet radiation, which over a long period may trigger mini ice ages in Europe. –Jonathan Leake, The Sunday Times, 9 October 2011
BRITAIN is set to suffer a mini ice age that could last for decades and bring with it a series of bitterly cold winters. And it could all begin within weeks as experts said last night that the mercury may soon plunge below the record -20C endured last year. Latest evidence shows La Nina, linked to extreme winter weather in America and with a knock-on effect on Britain, is in force and will gradually strengthen as the year ends. It coincides with research from the Met Office indicating the nation could be facing a repeat of the “little ice age” that gripped the country 300 years ago, causing decades of harsh winters. –Laura Caroe, Daily Express, 10 October 2011
Some scientists predict that the Sun is heading for a long slump in solar activity known as a Grand Solar Minimum. If this happens, it is possible that Britain could return to conditions similar to those 350 years ago when sunspots vanished during “the Little Ice Age”, when ice fairs were often held on the frozen Thames in London. –Paul Simons, The Times, 10 October 2011
Investment in more winter equipment may not be economical given rarity of British snow, says RAC Foundation chairman. The row over the need for a multimillion-pound investment in snowploughs, de-icing equipment and salt stocks deepened this morning with the publication of a government-backed report using Met Office predictions that successive hard winters are rare. Quarmby said the Met Office remained convinced that the severe cold snap is a one-off phenomenon. “We cannot say this is an annual event,” he said. –Dan Milmo, The Guardian, 23 December 2010
The Met Office is working with academics to try and predict the likelihood of severe winters over the next 20-30 years. The work aims to help transport authorities understand the risks of further severe winters after the coldest December since records began in 1910. But the work was criticised this week by Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. “I would strongly advise not to rely on any 20-30 year winter forecasts,” he said. “The point is that nobody really understands the basic feedbacks and climate dynamics that drive annual winter variability, let alone that long in advance.” –Local Transport Today, 25 February 2011
In October 2009 the Met Office predicted a mild winter because of El Nino. Temperatures in December would be above average, they said. In reality December temperatures were a whopping 1.1 degrees below the recent average. In 2010, contributing to the Quarmby Report, the Met Office advised to assume that the chance of a severe winter in 2010–11 is no greater (or less) than the current general probability of 1 in 20. Boy, were they wrong! Mean temperatures over the UK were 5.0 °C below average during December and 0.3 °C below average in January. –-David Whitehouse, The Observatory, 10 October 2011
The fact is that nobody knows if the forthcoming winter will be severe or mild. The only wise advice that can be given is to plan as if 2011 is going to be like the previous three winters, and one doesn’t need multi-million pound computers to make it. –-David Whitehouse, The Observatory, 10 October 2011
Snow is starting to disappear from our lives. Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain’s culture, as warmer winters – which scientists are attributing to global climate change – produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said. –The Independent, 20 March 2000
Green thinking represents a challenge to the status quo? That’s a laughable idea. From schools and universities to every corner of the Western political sphere, the climate-change outlook is the status quo. In fact, it’s the new conservatism. –Brendan O’Neil, The Australian, 8 October 2011
Mike Bromley the Kurd says:
October 10, 2011 at 6:34 pm
R., Your fingernails are not digging into that slippery slope very well. And the skritching racket is very annoying. Your attempt at exoneration is ludicrous.
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No need to exonerate anyone. Mann has displayed the fact that he understands the role of the sun in creating events such as the LIA, and also understands how pushing the level of CO2 beyond anything seen in at least 800,000 years might also affect the climate. Now, it appears we might get the chance to find out which one the climate is more sensitive to…or perhaps it will be a zero-sum game for a few decades.
I hate these exceptionally cold winters in England – they wreak havoc with our golfing, and engender eye-watering energy bills (inflated by stealth CO2 taxes).
The only good things about them are sledging, and sticking it on the warmingists. On balance, though…. I definitely prefer lots of golf and lower bills.
jimmi_the_dalek is quite right:
Rule 1: Always look at the original source
Rule 2: Do not believe media reports without checking
As an ink-stained wretch myself (and CAGW skeptic), I wholeheartedly agree. In this case, the various news outlets appear to have just lifted each other’s articles — no original research added. And the UK press is especially untrustworthy– yes, even worse than the American press!
And it all appears to go back to Benny Peiser, whose statement linking the Nature Geoscience paper to a supposed resurgence of the LIA was unsupported by anything in the actual article, which I read. I respectfully suggest Anthony look into this, as I quite admire his blog and hate to see misinformation get in here.
_jim.
“Notwithstanding the unassociated assertions and filibustering preceding this last statement above, but, what do you cite as objective proof or evidence for this statement?”
The evidence for the MWP ( scant, questionable proxy evidence and non testable documentary evidence) is confined geographically. If you are suspect of extrapolating current thermometers over 1200 km, then you should be more suspect about a handful of proxies. Go look at any map of proxy locations. The LIA was confined to europe and had more to do with TSI changes, volcanic forcing and UV changes.
Neither of these has any bearing on the issue of AGW. That issue is
1. how MUCH warming will increased GHGs cause.
That question is logically and observationationally disconnected from both the LIA and the MWP.
despite what Mann and Gore say, they have nothing to do with AGW.
It isn’t the Gulf Stream that keeps the UK temperate really. It is due to our weather coming from the West really so off of the relatively warm Atlantic in winter and also due to the large scale planetary waves causing our weather to come from a SW direction on average. A significant contributor to these Rossby waves are the Rocky mountains, so we have the US to thank for some of our temperate climate.
When we get weather from the north it isn’t very temperate here as the last 2 winters have shown.
steven mosher says:
October 10, 2011 at 9:44 pm
Neither of these has any bearing on the issue of AGW. That issue is
1. how MUCH warming will increased GHGs cause.
That question is logically and observationationally disconnected from both the LIA and the MWP.
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Not at all Steven. Your posts have been particular bizarre today.
The data indicate that increased GHGs cause an amount of warming that may be slightly positive, may be close to zero, or may be zero or less, when compared with natural variation, such as the MWP.
Who are you trying to kid ??
peakbear says:
October 10, 2011 at 10:02 pm
It isn’t the Gulf Stream that keeps the UK temperate really.
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No peak bear…it is…really. Shut down that lovely THC of which the Gulf Steam is part, and you’ll be getting bloody cold…really.
It’s interesting to compare the recent warm period to the 16th century. The first half of that century was very warm, in fact the summer of 1540 may have been warmer than 2003 in Europe. But then it all changed and there was a series of ice cold winters, and at the same time there was a multi year extremely severe drought in the sw US.
philincalifornia says:
October 10, 2011 at 10:04 pm
The data indicate that increased GHGs cause an amount of warming that may be slightly positive, may be close to zero, or may be zero or less…
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Uh, what kind of “warming” is “zero or less”? Negative warming? Is this some kind of tricky double-speak? GHG’s might cause negative warming…oh brother.
R. Gates says:
October 10, 2011 at 10:44 pm
philincalifornia says:
October 10, 2011 at 10:04 pm
The data indicate that increased GHGs cause an amount of warming that may be slightly positive, may be close to zero, or may be zero or less…
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Uh, what kind of “warming” is “zero or less”? Negative warming? Is this some kind of tricky double-speak? GHG’s might cause negative warming…oh brother.
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Ha ha ha, kinda like ocean acidification-speak sorry. I’ll be more careful next time.
Dodgy Geezer says:
October 10, 2011 at 12:15 pm
“…Britain should brace itself for another freezing winter with the return of La Niña, a climate phenomenon known to disrupt global weather, ministers have warned….”
Umm. If British Ministers tell you the sun goes down at night you should start preparing for 24 hours of daytime. They lie even when there is no need to, just to keep in habit. They are regularly beaten by bankers, estate agent and lawyers in truth contests. They would give Australian politicians a run for their money…
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🙂 They wouldn’t even come close to our Prime Minister ‘Juliar’ and her pack of thieving lying sycophants.
R. Gates says:
October 10, 2011 at 5:14 pm
I am quite skeptical that Europe is in for 20-30 years of cooling, or anything approaching a “Little Ice Age”.
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The whole NH hemisphere is heading downhill pretty fast.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/icrutem3_hadsst2_0-360E_30-90N_n_sua.png
CET records is a good proxy for NH record, global record follows the NH quite well. How to twist these facts will be interesting to watch.
From Jonathan Leake
Thanks to those who have commented on this article. However, there appears to be a common misunderstanding. My Sunday Times article was not about anthropogenic climate change. The phenomena mentioned in this article are natural and separate from climate change. They operate in parallel to climate change, in parallel to each other but, of course, each on very different time scales.
La Nina, for example, is really about weather. It’s part of a relatively short term natural cycle operating over periods of a few years.
It’s just one of many factors which together mean that weather is constantly showing a high level of variability. In other words, getting a cold winter or two does not tell us anything about climate change. It just tells us that weather changes a lot – which we already know.
Similarly, the research in Nature Geoscience about the changes in solar radiation, is also nothing to do with climate change. It’s an entirely separate effect happening in parallel. Scientists think its part of a 3-400 year cycle of changes in UV radiation. There’s a good article here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15199065
and the original is here
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1282.html
It’s interesting to wonder if it will mitigate or amplify any effects from greenhouse gas emissions but I suspect no-one really knows yet.
The key point is that short term changes in the weather and long term changes in the climate are both driven by a complex mix of variables. Working out the most likely future trends is hard and takes long-term dedicated science. Reducing it all to an argument about climate change misses the real point which is that we should be trying to use the best science to assess objectively just how much of a problem all these effects really present to an increasingly crowded and interconnected world.
The science suggesting that the Earth faces significant warming remains very strong. If you disagree then you need good science to back your case. These other phenomena (La Nina, UV radiation etc) are interesting in their own right but are simply not relevant to that discussion.
Jonathan Leake
And I was looking forward to snowless winters as promised. I’m gutted now as it appears the consensus that ‘Snow will be a thing of the past’ is incorrect and disappointing.
/Sarc
Jonathan Leake says:
October 11, 2011 at 12:02 am
The science suggesting that the Earth faces significant warming remains very strong.
Not really. The hard science part (about CO2 absorption) only suggests a moderate warming. We don’t really know for sure if even burning all the remaining known fossil fuels would be enough to compensate for a LIA-like multi century cold period.
The science that suggests significant warming is much “softer” science, based on incomplete computer models.
Hi Jonathan, good to see you engaging here!
The two aspects ‘weather’ and ‘climate change’ are not so separate….firstly, the IPCC (now) defines climate change as ‘both’ natural and man-made combined…..the reason being that as you rightly point out, both occur in parallel, but they are not distinguishable. The problem lies with determining how much of the GHG effect, which is measured way up in the atmosphere as a radiative forcing effect actually gets through to a warming at the surface…IPCC models have large variations in this factor – between 2-3 times, hence the large variability in the estimates of warming from doubling CO2 of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C.
In order to tell which parameters of the models are the most accurate, the science has to look at the actual rise of temperatures over the last several decades to get a handle on the feedbacks – and here is where the controversy arises. In my book of 2009, ‘Chill’ (of which the Times was sent 4 copies over as many weeks as requested -but never reviewed!), I detail that controversy within the published science, much of which the IPCC downplayed and concluded that a largely natural ‘signal’ over the latter part of the 20th century had been misinterpreted as support for the higher sensitivity in some models. The test of whether I was right would come when the natural cycle turned down – as it has done, and lo, not only does the UK, USA, and China get severe winters as predictable, but the oceans stop increasing their heat content and tropospheric temperatures flatten out. If the cycle continues to fall as the Sun goes into a grand minimum, then it will get cold for 30-40 years. That is also ‘climate change’, even by IPCC definitions, but the AGW component actually works to ameliorate the cold – just at the time when the world needs its food production to stay bouyant (I am not hopeful of the latter).
steven mosher says: October 10, 2011 at 12:38 pm
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Smokey says: October 10, 2011 at 1:01 pm “Steven Mosher says:”
Stephen Wilde says: October 10, 2011 at 1:12 pm “Steven Mosher said:”
John Peter says: October 10, 2011 at 1:34 pm “…Steven Mosher may wish peruse http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php before he makes this statement again at least with regards to MWP.”
Matt G says: October 10, 2011 at 3:01 pm “1) How can this only be regional when during the instrumental record, the same regions concerned have behaved like wise with global temperatures. 2) Instrumental records since the LIA (1850?s) have showed increased temperatures in all global site regions.”
Robert Austin says: October 10, 2011 at 3:25 pm “steven mosher says:”
RoyFOMR says: October 10, 2011 at 5:03 pm “Steven Mosher says:”
_Jim says: October 10, 2011 at 5:33 pm “steven mosher says”
Ron House says: October 10, 2011 at 6:19 pm “Steven Mosher said:”
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steven mosher says: October 10, 2011 at 9:44 pm
Steve, there’s a lot of good scientists listed here, who responded to you because we appreciate you. But the evidence of this list in itself says that you are simply not paying attention to the evidence in this instance.
There is global evidence for the MWP (however much you may regard it as “inferior”, it still exists) and you have been pointed towards some of it.
”
To support your sweeping assertions, please list the Earth’s geographic locations by Marsden Square which you have found to be devoid of evidence of 1. the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and/or 2. the Little Ice Age (LIA). Number ranges will be adequate for this purpose.
I wrote: at the same time there was a multi year extremely severe drought in the sw US.
Here’s a paper about the “16th century mega-drought”:
http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/SOURCES/.LDEO/.TRL/.NADA2004/pdsiatlashtml/pdsiatlaspdfs/stahle2.pdf
richard telford October 10, 2011 at 11:41 am
I don’t think David Whitehouse understands probabilities. If I predict that there is only a one in six chance of a six occurring when a fair die is rolled, am I incorrect when a six does occur?
No, of course not, but if you bet against a six, and a six occurs, you were wrong to bet against it. You couldn’t have known that you were wrong, but you were wrong nonetheless.
steven mosher says:
October 10, 2011 at 9:44 pm
……..
Mr. Mosher
-It is assumed that atmospheric temperatures do not (and most likely can not) affect paleo- and archaeo- -magnetic dating samples.
-Dr. Loehle compiled his global temperature anomaly independently of my analysis of geomagnetic records. Two sets of data show good agreement covering period of two millennia, both indicating existence MWP ant LIA.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LL.htm
This is not to say that the geomagnetic field changes controls global temperature. However, the geomagnetic field does, to a degree, mirror solar magnetic activity, not necessarily sunspot but stronger bursts of the coronal mass ejection, CMEs.
I have tracked output from the GM station at Tromso, Norway, since the beginning of the year (graphs 5&6 in http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MFc.htm ) and they do show that after every solar CME’ burst, the geomagnetic field went up by a small notch.
How these changes are, if at all, linked to the temperature changes is uncertain, but evidence is sufficiently strong not to be ignored.
We may not have the answer, but that is not a good reason not search for it.
Will the warmists at University of East Anglia then repent?
I don’t think David Whitehouse understands probabilities. If I predict that there is only a one in six chance of a six occurring when a fair die is rolled, am I incorrect when a six does occur?
its a d20
Thanks to this post. If happens that this will really take place then Europeans must read this one. Good reading.
Dave Springer says:
October 10, 2011 at 11:48 am
So what I want to know from the climate boffins is exactlty how much CO2 we need to inject into the atmosphere to make things like the Little Ice Age a practical impossibility in the future.
The Marinoan and Varangian global snowball-earth ice ages occurred around 650-750 MYa during which atmospheric CO2 levels were >10,000 ppm, so our climate boffins will have to aim north of this figure. In fact the Huronian ice age at around 2 billion years ago took place with an atmosphere at least 10 % CO2.